Hostis humani generis, meaning “enemy of humankind,” is the legal basis by which Western societies have defined such criminals as pirates, torturers, or terrorists as beyond the pale of civilization. Sonja Schillings argues that this legal fiction does more than characterize certain persons as inherently hostile: it provides a narrative basis for legitimating violence in the name of the state. The work draws attention to a century-old narrative pattern that not only underlies the legal category of enemies of the state, but more generally informs interpretations of imperial expansion, protest against government-sponsored oppression, and the transformation of institutions as “legitimate” interventions on behalf of civilized society.

The first monograph to investigate the poetics and politics of haunting in African diaspora literature, Ghosts of the African Diaspora: Re-Visioning History, Memory, and Identity examines literary works by five contemporary writers—Fred D’Aguiar, Gloria Naylor, Paule Marshall, Michelle Cliff, and Toni Morrison. Joanne Chassot argues that reading these texts through the lens of the ghost does cultural, theoretical, and political work crucial to the writers’ engagement with issues of identity, memory, and history. Drawing on memory and trauma studies, postcolonial studies, and queer theory, this truly interdisciplinary volume makes an important contribution to the fast-growing field of spectrality studies.

What image of Latin America have North American fiction writers created, found, or echoed, and how has the prevailing discourse about the region shaped their work? How have their writings contributed to the discursive construction of our southern neighbors, and how has the literature undermined this construction and added layers of complexity that subvert any approach based on stereotypes? Combining American Studies, Canadian Studies, Latin American Studies, and Cultural Theory, Breinig relies on long scholarly experience to answer these and other questions. 'Hemispheric Imaginations', an ambitious interdisciplinary study of literary representations of Latin America as encounters with the other, is among the most extensive such studies to date. It will appeal to a broad range of scholars of American Studies.

This fascinating book explores Beat Generation writing from a transnational perspective, using the concept of worlding to place Beat literature in conversation with a far-reaching network of cultural and political formations. Countering the charge that the Beats abroad were at best naïve tourists seeking exoticism for exoticism's sake, World Beats finds that these writers propelled a highly politicized agenda that sought to use the tools of the earlier avant-garde to undermine Cold War and postcolonial ideologies and offer a new vision of engaged literature. With fresh interpretations of central Beat authors Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs - as well as usually marginalized writers like Philip Lamantia, Ted Joans, and Brion Gysin - World Beats moves beyond national, continental, or hemispheric frames to show that embedded within Beat writing is an essential universality that brought America to the world and the world to American literature. This book presents an original treatment that will attract a broad spectrum of scholars. This title was made Open Access by libraries from around the world through Knowledge Unlatched.